What to do with the data: Moving from observations to design direction

This article was originally published on December 7, 2009.

What is data but observation? Observations are what was seen and what was heard. As teams work on early designs, the data is often about obvious design flaws and higher order behaviors, and not necessarily tallying details. In this article, let’s talk about tools for working with observations made in exploratory or formative user research.

Many teams have a sort of intuitive approach to analyzing observations that relies on anecdote and aggression. Whoever is the loudest gets their version accepted by the group. Over the years, I’ve learned a few techniques for getting past that dynamic and on to informed inferences that lead to smart design direction and creating solution theories that can then be tested.

Collaborative techniques give better designs

The idea is to collaborate. Let’s start with the assumption that the whole design team is involved in the planning and doing of whatever the user research project is.

Now, let’s talk about some ways to expedite analysis and consensus. Doing this has the side benefit of minimizing reporting – if everyone involved in the design direction decisions has been involved all along, what do you need reporting for? (See more about this in the last section of this article.)

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Observers are your friends

(This article was originally published on May 30, 2008. This is a refresh.)

Research that you do alone ends up in only your head. No matter how good the report, slide deck, or highlights video, not all the knowledge gets transferred to your teammates. This isn’t your fault. It just is.

So what to do? Enlist as many people on your team as possible to help you by observing your usability testing sessions. You can even give your observers jobs, such as time-keeper if you’re measuring time on task. Or, if you are recording sessions, it could be an observer’s job to start and stop the recordings and to label and store them properly.

The key is to involve the other people on the team – even managers – so they can

help you
learn from participants
share insights with you and other observers
buy in
reach consensus on what the issues are and how to solve them

Who should observe: Everyone

Ideally, everyone on the design and development team should observe sessions. Every designer, every programmer, every manager on the project should watch as real people use their designs. People on the wider team who are making design decisions should also observe sessions. I’m talking about QA testers, project managers, product managers, product owners, legal people, compliance people, operations people — everyone.

Continue reading Observers are your friends

Making sense of the data: Collaborative data analysis

I’ve often said that most of the value in doing user research is in spending time with users — observing them, listening to them. This act, especially if done by everyone on the design team, can be unexpectedly enlightening. Insights are abundant.

But it’s data, right? Now that the team has done this observing, what do you know? What are you going to do with what you know? How do you figure that out?

The old way: Tally the data, write a report, make recommendations

This is the *usual* sequence of things after the sessions with users are done: finish the sessions; count incidents; tally data; summarize data; if there’s enough data, do some statistical analysis; write a report listing all the issues; maybe apply severity ratings; present the report to the team; make recommendations for changes to the user interface; wait to see what happens.

There are a couple of problems with this process, though. UXers feel pressure to analyze the data really quickly. They complain that no one reads the report. And if you’re an outside consultant, there’s often no good way of knowing whether your recommendations will be implemented. Continue reading Making sense of the data: Collaborative data analysis

Consensus on observations in real time: Keeping a rolling list of issues

Design teams often need results from usability studies yesterday. Teams I work with always want to start working on observations right away. How to support them while giving good data and ensuring that the final findings are valid?

Teams that are fully engaged in getting feedback from users – teams that share a vision of the experience they want their users to have – have often helped me gather data and evaluate in the course of the test. In chatting with Livia Labate, I learned that the amazing team at Comcast Interactive Media (CIM) came to the same technique on their own. Crystal Kubitsky of CIM was good enough to share photos of CIM’s progress through one study. Here’s how it works:

1. Start noting observations right away

After two or three participants have tried the design, we take a longer break to debrief about what we have observed so far. In that debrief, each team member talks about what he or she has observed. We write it down on a white board and note which participants had the issue. The team works together to articulate what the observation or issue was. Continue reading Consensus on observations in real time: Keeping a rolling list of issues